


doves & ravens

by lolainslackss



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, Graduation, Healing, Kissing, M/M, Raven Neil Josten, The Perfect Court (All For The Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 06:03:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16153124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolainslackss/pseuds/lolainslackss
Summary: It’s graduation day. They’re wearing identical black suits and scarlet ties and Jean wishes he could put it into words, how desperately fractured he feels. On the one hand, they’re out. On the other, he’s been Neil’s partner for nearly five years now.I don’t want to lose this, he wants to say, but it’s stupid. It’s madness.





	doves & ravens

**Author's Note:**

> this is a raven!neil au, but the timeline has been shuffled a little bit so that a) Neil would have been there the night Kevin's hand would have been broken, and b) so they all graduate together
> 
> cw: references to the abuse that goes on within the Nest
> 
> title is from the EP of the same name by Dermot Kennedy because I listened to it over and over while writing this and because obvious symbolism isn't dead :,)

Jean’s hands stumble against the red silk of his tie and he releases this kind of shuddery sigh that usually precedes crying. While a good, old-fashioned sob might purge all the poison and heartbreak out of his system right now, they don’t have time for that, and so Neil is there within seconds, his fingers sorting the mess Jean’s made with practised ease.

“There,” Neil murmurs, patting the tie flat and letting his hand drift to Jean’s face. The feel of Neil’s palm cupping his cheek is steadying and squashes his queasiness down a bit. Over the years, he’s gotten used to this feeling: shivery, seasick, hounded by a sense of impending doom for a catastrophe that never really comes. Until it does, and it’s not the one he’s been expecting.

It’s graduation day. They’re wearing identical black suits and scarlet ties and Jean wishes he could put it into words, how desperately fractured he feels. On the one hand, they’re out (for a while there, he never thought they’d make it). Their bodies are forever changed and they have scars where their hearts should be, but they’re whole, somehow still breathing. On the other hand, he’s been Neil’s partner for nearly five years now. Every day they’ve woken to the sight of each other’s faces, and they’ve come to know each other as well as they know themselves. It’s like this: it hurts, but there’s nowhere else to go. It _hurts_ , but what else is there? They live to play Exy and they play Exy to live. They each learned long ago that fighting only makes things worse so they made it their mantra; words to live and die by.

It’s not _all_ darkness. The paragraphs of violent acts are punctuated by secret smiles, gentle touches. At first, it was dragging each other upright after stumbling. Out of necessity, it was clearing away the dried blood and debris from a fresh wound, the medicinal smell of antiseptic cream filling their room like cigarette smoke. Then, almost unintentionally, it was tracing the joined-up constellations of stitches on Neil’s skin with a timid-yet-watchful gaze.

Inevitably, it was holding each other in the dark, their hands cautious and curious as they exchange soft questions in sleepy French (the way Neil’s body formed to his own was as cauterising to Jean’s wounds as any hot, flat knife). Finally, it was this: Neil in his lap, and his tongue sliding inside Neil’s mouth while he knotted the soft, auburn curls at the nape of Neil’s neck around his knuckles as they both lost sense of time and place in the warm swirl of kissing one another.

This, _this_ is the other hand: tonight they’ll be told which professional teams they’re going to, and Jean feels terrified right down to his marrow.

 _I don’t want to lose this_ , he wants to say, but it’s stupid. It’s madness. They’ve both wanted out of the Nest for far too long. They hate the stuffy rooms and the lack of light and the crazy rules and above all, the cruelty. Not just Riko’s particular brand of cruelty, but the nastiness that pervades the place itself. The parties feverish with bottled-up tension - the punchlines, the punches. They’re getting out in one piece, lungs full of air and blood pumping through their veins and Jean should be thankful. Neil’s hand slides from Jean’s cheek to the back of his head and then he pulls Jean down toward him so their foreheads meet. He smiles.

“I’m going to miss you too,” he says, clairvoyant as ever, closing his eyes.

Jean has nothing to add so he mimics him, wishing he could stop time for just a little while and just be in that moment, eat his fill of whatever it is he is hungry for, and then move on.

When he opens his eyes, Neil takes his hand and leads him to the doorway. He’s never seen Neil look so breezy or alert, like he’s already a free man, breathing in fresh air.

Jean never thought a life outside the Nest might be more difficult than a life curled up inside it, but in that moment, he knows that’s how it’s going to be. They’re going to separate and it’s going to be painful. Wherever Neil goes, he’s going to carry Jean’s heart in his fist with him.

It’ll leave a trail of blood across the country more terrible than even the Moriyamas can create.

 

…

 

Neil graduates as Wesninski, Nathaniel, so he’s almost dead last. Jean sits somewhere in the middle of everything, clutching a diploma he barely remembers working toward, the stupid tassel of his cap tickling the corner of his eye. They gravitate towards one another afterward and two glasses of champagne are unceremoniously dumped into their empty, fidgeting hands by a stern-looking Tetsuji.

“Your fathers are here,” he tells them, and Jean is suddenly grateful he has the champagne to cling onto. He nearly snaps the stem in half from the effort in takes not to wind his hand around Neil’s own.

Their fathers are scary people. Their fathers traded them like oil or gold or guns (Jean was delivered to the Nest easily and somewhat eagerly, excited to show off his Exy skills. Neil’s story was quite different. He’d told it to Jean in this bland, unconcerned voice that first year, not long after he’d started sneaking into Jean’s bed after the lights had gone out and the Nest had grown quiet. His mother had ran with him, he’d said. After years of transient living and constantly looking over their shoulders, the past finally caught up with them, as it had a habit of doing. He’d burned her body and buried the bones, and immediately after, he’d called his uncle. _I didn’t know what else to do_ , he’d whispered, his blue eyes clinging onto Jean’s own in the dark. He and his uncle had convened at a run-down diner a few days later and it had been recommended that he go where he was meant to go all along: the Ravens’ Nest. Neil had said he wasn’t sure if the suggestion was born out of pure concern over Neil’s odds of surviving as a runaway, but rather an attempt to mend the fault lines his mother had caused all those years ago. Either way, tired and grieving, he’d agreed, thus upending himself onto a mousetrap of a life that had been fashioned for him years ago). They haven’t seen their fathers in what feels like several lifetimes. Nevertheless, they obediently part and make their separate ways through the crowd.

His parents are standing beneath the maple trees, smoking cigarettes they’re not really supposed to be smoking on school grounds. They’re dressed in the finest French designer clothing - his mother in classic floral-print and his father in emblematic black-and-red. They watch him approach as they would a stranger.

Jean panics and speaks first, muttering a hello that comes out sounding impolite.

“Jean,” his mother says, breathing a plume of smoke in his face in such a way that it takes him back to his childhood days of being scolded on the patio for trudging mud into the villa. “We don’t have long.”

“There’s not much to say,” his father adds, checking his watch. His hair is the same as Jean’s: black, parted in the middle and hanging down to his shoulders. There’s not a strand out of place and Jean suppresses the urge to reach up and run his fingers through his own hair in an attempt to flatten it into immaculacy. “Keep doing what you’re doing. You’ve made it this far, haven’t you?”

He can’t tell if his father is trying to be empathetic or just trying to kill time. He realises he doesn’t know much about his father at all. As a child, he’d thought of his father as untouchable, but now he sees him differently. He was mostly powerless; he traded his eldest son to settle a debt, after all. Jean wonders, briefly, what would have happened to them all if the debt hadn’t been paid. Instead of being permanently fucked-up, he could be dead - his mother and father and his brother and sister too. Maybe he would have made a similar decision in his father’s place. Unsurprisingly, it’s not a pleasant train of thought to follow.

He mutters a checked goodbye and makes his way back to Neil. _Neil_ , who he knows has nightmares about his father even now (Jean would soothe him through the aftershocks of bad dreams in the pitch black, whispering that he’d not been caught, that he was here, _home_ , in the Nest, uncertain that it was actually that much of a comfort). He’s surprised to find his partner still smiling, that look in his eyes that says he’s almost made it over the cliff’s edge to finally stand on steady ground. It’s tenacious, at war with the violent trembling of his fingers.

“How was it?” Jean asks, standing close enough for their elbows to touch.

Neil laughs and then blows a strand of hair out of his face. “Fine. It was honestly, completely, one hundred percent fine. I- I don’t want to be scared of him anymore. We’re out. We’re nearly-”

Neil stops talking when Riko and Kevin sidle up to them in matching caps and gowns. They stand in a neat row of one, two, three, four. A perfect set in black and red. A king and all his pawns.

“That was my idea, by the way,” Riko says, raising his eyebrows expectantly. “We didn’t have to do that. You’re belong to us, after all.”

“Thank you, Riko,” Neil says, a little too enthusiastically for the insincerity to slip through the cracks.

“Yes, thank you,” Jean tacks on, trying his best to sound grateful.

“We’re to see the Master this evening,” Riko goes on. “He’s going to tell us where we’re headed. Seems a shame, doesn’t it, to split us up?”

“Yes,” Jean answers, just because nobody else does.

“At least we’ll all be Court,” Kevin says, the optimism in his words at odds with the wariness in his expression.

Jean gets it, he really does. He’s been thinking the same thing every time he catches Neil’s eye recently. _At least we’ll see each other at the World Cup. At least we’ll see each other at the Olympics_. It’s a comforting thought for all of about two seconds before he remembers that Riko’s going to be there too. He’ll probably split them up just to be spiteful; their being partnered only flies in the Nest because Riko decreed it.

“Don’t look so gloomy, Jean,” Riko says, tapping him on the nose playfully (it’s crooked - never set after that third break - and Riko likes to remind him of that fact). “Maybe some of us will end up on the same team. You never know.”

That’s another worry, that he’ll be stuck with Riko for good. Even worse is the thought that _Neil_ will be. It’s a worry Jean doesn’t dignify with weight. It’s funny, he supposes, how he has hope left at all, but he’s certain of this: they’re going to get out, and they’re going to live a life free from Riko and his violence.

The world can’t be all hard and sharp at the edges.

 

...

 

Neil and Jean end up back in their room for the evening. Classes are over, so there’s not much to do. They kill a couple of hours reading Exy magazines but end up just watching each other, Neil’s head pillowed in Jean’s lap and the lamplight casting shadows across his face. When the time comes, Jean leads the way.

They haven’t assembled in front of the Master like this since that night they had that awfully tense four-person match all those years ago (Neil had worked out what it took to ensure survival in the Nest by that point and had appealed to Kevin to let Riko win. Kevin hadn’t liked selling himself short in front of the NCAA, but Riko was more than satisfied and they all slept peacefully that night). Tetsuji shuffles their contracts in his hands like he’s some divine being deciding their fates.

“We’ll keep this brief,” he says, sparing them all a passing glance before returning to the stacked papers. “I have eight contracts in front of me. Four of them are your Court contracts, as you’re obviously all part of the national team effective immediately. The other four specify where you’ll be starting your professional careers. You are not to discuss transfers without consulting the Moriyama family first. If anything, they’ll be suggested _by_ the Moriyama family, is that clear?”

Jean nods along with the rest of them.

“Right,” Tetsuji continues. “Kevin, you will be starting striker for the San Francisco Olympians.”

Kevin takes the two contracts and bows before sitting back down. He gives nothing away, but Jean knows he’ll be thrilled. San Francisco is where Thea is, after all.

“Riko, you will be starting striker for the Dallas Cedars,” Tetsuji continues, handing Riko his own two contracts. He signs them eagerly, looking smug. Jean supposes he has a good reason to be; Dallas are one of the best teams in the country right now.

“Finally, Nathaniel, Jean? You will be joining the defence line in Salt Lake City playing for the Doves-”

Jean opens his mouth to speak but Riko gets there first.

“What?” he asks.

“Don’t interrupt,” Tetsuji barks, slamming the tip of his cane against the floor.

Jean wants to - _needs to_ \- ask if he’s serious, but the sound of the cane crashing against the tiles glues his mouth shut.

“The Moriyama family will provide housing for you and manage your income,” Tetsuji goes on, “eighty percent of which is to be donated to the Moriyama family on a yearly basis. If your career is cut short by injury or any other reason, we will meet to discuss your _options_. Any questions?”

“If Jean and Nathaniel are to play together, shouldn’t we all play together?” Riko asks, his cheeks reddening.

If Jean didn’t already know they were leaving tonight, he’d start to worry. Now, he can hardly bring himself to care over the blow of relief that makes him feel like he’s fallen face-first into an alternate reality. The chances of him and Neil going on to the same team had seemed so slim, so fragile, that he dared not dwell on the possibility for too long in case he tore himself into even tinier pieces.

“So Salt Lake City get two of us?” Riko continues, his gaze darkening. “How is that fair?”

“The US Court will have all four of you,” Tetsuji points out impatiently, his eyes narrowing. “Would you say that’s unfair to the rest of the world?”

Riko doesn’t have an answer for that and he clamps his mouth shut. Jean looks past him to Neil. Their twin smiles are a cipher written in a code only they can understand, and Jean can feel his heart beating wildly in his chest the same way it did last week, when they won the championship for the fifth year in a row. It feels like snapping off the still-grimy, larger sliver of wishbone when you’re young and still believe anything is possible as long as you keep it secret. It feels like the closest thing to happiness he’s ever known. It maybe even _is_ happiness.

 

...

 

So they’re given a house. It’s kitted out with a gym and a pool as well as a huge, fancy kitchen and multiple bedrooms. After being holed up in a tiny, windowless dorm for years on end, Jean’s initial thought is that it’s far too big for them. He pushes that feeling aside and deliberately wanders from room-to-room, familiarising himself with the layout of the house. He’s not used to having his own space, or having time to do as he pleases. It’s one of many, many ingrained ways of thinking he plans on dismantling. Speaking of which, if they were still in the Nest, they would have went to bed at noon that day, but because Neil is determined to get them back on a twenty-four-hour cycle as soon as possible, he forces them to stay up until midnight.

They drink coffee and watch TV and even go outside to watch the sunset because as cliché as it is, they haven’t watched the sky shift from day to night on their own terms in a long time. The clouds are very low on the horizon and clustered together, lurking like some big animal as the colours Jean has no names for fade and blacken. Once it’s all dark, the air grows chilly, and Jean goes back inside to get them a blanket.

They perch on the picket fence, ignoring how uncomfortable it is, and swap stories about watching the stars as a kid (Jean on a balcony in Marseilles, Neil in the back of a stolen pickup truck parked in the middle of the Las Vegas desert). Eventually, they wander back inside.

Jean feels sleepy and wired all at the same time, jittery from the excess of caffeine. He restlessly looks through the already-stocked cupboards until he finds a bottle of whisky. Neither of them particularly like alcohol all that much, but Jean feels like their current circumstances merit some kind of ceremony. He pours the citrine-coloured liquid into two glasses and hands one to Neil before raising his own in the air.

“I-” Jean starts, before huffing out a nonsensical laugh. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“ _Great_ toast,” Neil says sarcastically, clicking his glass against Jean’s before downing the shot in two large gulps.

“I wanted to tell you earlier,” Jean says, because he feels like it’s important, “that I didn’t want to lose this.”

“You wouldn’t have lost this,” Neil answers - slowly, gently - twirling his empty glass around in his hands. “Even if we’d been sent to opposite ends of the country, we would still have _this_. You know that, right?”

“I can’t believe any of this is really happening,” Jean replies, drinking his whisky and wincing away the burn.

“Well, it is really happening,” Neil tells him, looking smug and handsome. “Kiss me?”

Jean puts down the empty glass and walks across the carpet in his bare feet to where Neil is sitting on the couch. He leans forward, placing his hands at either side of Neil’s head, and kisses him tenderly.

Neil tastes like whisky - smoky and sweet - and he responds to Jean’s kiss with a similar gentleness, as if he too is afraid their miraculous situation will shatter irreparably if they push it too hard. It’s so precious it seems fragile, and it annoys Jean they feel that way. He makes a disgruntled noise in his throat and deepens the kiss, trying to banish the familiar, irrational fear that Riko can somehow see what they're doing. Neil shifts beneath him and deftly spins them around, pushing Jean down before climbing on top of him. He presses their chests together and snakes his hands around Jean’s neck before resuming the kiss. Their bodies fit together so snugly that Jean forgets where he ends and Neil begins. They kiss like that that for what feels like hours, firmly and hungrily and not letting it turn into anything more than just kissing. Eventually, they end up tangled together on the couch, too tired to move.

Jean contemplates carrying Neil to one of the bedrooms, but they haven’t decided which one will be _theirs_ yet and it feels like a decision they should make together. Jean lets his eyes flutter closed, the hand that’s tucked around Neil’s side rising and and falling in time with Neil’s breathing.

It’s afternoon when they finally wake, but it doesn’t matter. Golden light filters in through the windows. They have all the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm [palmetttos](http://palmetttos.tumblr.com) on tumblr! come talk to me or let me know if I've made any mistakes :)


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